Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Speaking of Objects' and 'Troubles with Functionalism'

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23 ideas

2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 1. Dialectic
20768 Like spiderswebs, dialectical arguments are clever but useless [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 7. Abstract/Concrete / a. Abstract/concrete
1630 We can only see an alien language in terms of our own thought structures (e.g. physical/abstract) [Quine]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / b. Commitment of quantifiers
5747 "No entity without identity" - our ontology must contain items with settled identity conditions [Quine, by Melia]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 12. Denial of Properties
7925 There is no proper identity concept for properties, and it is hard to distinguish one from two [Quine]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 2. Abstract Objects / b. Need for abstracta
13387 Our conceptual scheme becomes more powerful when we posit abstract objects [Quine]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / a. Individuation
8277 I prefer 'no object without identity' to Quine's 'no entity without identity' [Lowe on Quine]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / a. Nature of qualia
2584 Lobotomised patients can cease to care about a pain [Block]
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / c. Explaining qualia
2582 A brain looks no more likely than anything else to cause qualia [Block]
17. Mind and Body / B. Behaviourism / 2. Potential Behaviour
2574 Behaviour requires knowledge as well as dispositions [Block]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 1. Functionalism
2576 In functionalism, desires are internal states with causal relations [Block]
2575 Functionalism is behaviourism, but with mental states as intermediaries [Block]
2583 You might invert colours, but you can't invert beliefs [Block]
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 8. Functionalism critique
2578 Could a creature without a brain be in the right functional state for pain? [Block]
2585 Not just any old functional network will have mental states [Block]
2586 In functionalism, what are the special inputs and outputs of conscious creatures? [Block]
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / b. Multiple realisability
2579 Physicalism is prejudiced in favour of our neurology, when other systems might have minds [Block]
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 6. Artificial Thought / b. Turing Machines
2577 Simple machine-functionalism says mind just is a Turing machine [Block]
2580 A Turing machine, given a state and input, specifies an output and the next state [Block]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 1. Syntax
2581 Intuition may say that a complex sentence is ungrammatical, but linguistics can show that it is not [Block]
19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / b. Indeterminate translation
1631 You could know the complete behavioural conditions for a foreign language, and still not know their beliefs [Quine]
1632 Translation of our remote past or language could be as problematic as alien languages [Quine]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / f. The Mean
3049 The chief good is indifference to what lies midway between virtue and vice [Ariston, by Diog. Laertius]
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 1. Deontology
3549 Ariston says rules are useless for the virtuous and the non-virtuous [Ariston, by Annas]